


Sense

by elephant_eyelash



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/F, F/M, Introspection, Reaction, Servants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-27
Updated: 2012-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-31 19:12:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/347458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elephant_eyelash/pseuds/elephant_eyelash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set sometime in episode 2x08. The servants’ reactions to the news of Sybil and Branson’s engagement</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sense

His words still seemed to echo, to bounce off the walls of the servants’ hall so that none of them were sure that they would ever really settle. Carson would hear no more on the subject, but people still exchanged looks across the table, articulated their opinions in the sharp sudden movements as they sewed buttons onto clothes or polished shoes.

Carson himself was all stone, though Mrs Hughes could see the sharp look in his dark eyes, the tension in his movements. She herself wasn’t too shocked. Her eyes were open to the quiet love that had grown between Branson and Lady Sybil over the years. She’d tried to temper it as best she could- she knew, for instance, that Lady Sybil often made a habit of spending time at the garage. She’d quietly and efficiently worked out the usual times of her visit and gave them an alloted time. She knew they were sensible (well, that wasn’t quite right-she knew Lady Sybil was sensible).

She was fairly sure Anna and Mr Bates knew too. The three got along rather well, even though Branson tended to be a somewhat solitary creature. She respected that and she respected him. And perhaps naively she’d have thought he’d have respected the boundaries of the house. It was a shame. She’d liked him. She didn’t even mind his impromptu lectures, and in fact liked the way they broke the pattern of humdrum chit-chat and gossip over dinner.

Carson decided to retire early to bed, but she knew he wouldn’t sleep. She brought him in his usual tray (sweet tea and digestives), knowing he’d be brooding and sulking. Strange, really. On the outside he was all solid decorum but underneath it all he had rather a boyish, adolescent way of processing his feelings. And he pretended that she couldn’t see past his mask, couldn’t read his face like the lines of a familiar poem.

“I still can’t believe it, you know.” He announced, each word a booming bullet. “How despicable. What a flagrant disregard for everything our work stands for, I mean—-“

“Now now, Mr Carson.” She said, setting his tea in front of him. “Don’t get yourself worked up.” She sat down, paused for a bit, let him stew. “I suppose I should have seen it coming.”

His eyes widened. “‘Seen it coming’? Why, what happened?”

She pursed her lips a little, quickly deciding not to inform him of the incident at the garden party all those years ago. “Nothing. They were just always very close.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Were they?”

“You didn’t notice the way they looked at one another?” She said cautiously.

“Certainly not!” He said, as if the very suggestion was a personal insult to his very core, what made Carson Carson. That was always his problem— he defined himself by this house, by his vocation so totally that he often couldn’t see anything outwith its limits. To him the human experience was a tightly defined thing, regulated by years of tradition and not something so crass and spontaneous and out-of-place as this. This was an irregularity he could not correct, a speck on a piece of silver he could never polish away.

“Oh, well.” She smiled sweetly. “There’s not much we can do now, is there?”

“I thought she had more sense than that.” He said, still hurt, wounded by it all. Of course Lady Sybil was not his favourite, but she was still a daughter of this house, a daughter he had seen grow. 

She laughed. “There’s not much sense in love.”

He grumbled and sipped his tea.

//////////

“I think it’s romantic.” Daisy piped up, as usual a ball of girlish energy, flitting back and forth between the kitchen and the servants’ hall. As soon as Carson had left the topic had immediately turned to the young couple, and as usual Daisy was the first to sweetly and unassumingly broach such a sensitive subject.”It’s like something out of a novel.”

“I think it’s disgusting.” O’Brien sneered. All she could see was her Lady’s face falling apart in grief and it struck at her heart so very violently. How could she, so soon after her Mother’s recovery? Who knew what might set her back now?

“Why?” Thomas asked, tapping the ash from his cigarette. “They’re just two people, aren’t they?”

“You can’t pretend it’s as simple as all of that.” Anna said, as always neutral, testing the waters. She herself was too preoccupied to worry about it. As much as she liked the two individually she couldn’t spend time right now worrying about a love that wasn’t hers’, though she secretly admired their bravery. She’d already done what she could to stop the dam from overflowing.

“He went after what he wanted and he got it. There’s not many of us here can say that.” Thomas said, his voice a long drawl.

“Doesn’t mean he was right.” O’Brien said, absorbed. “There’s an order to things and he should have respected that.”

“It’s silly though, isn’t it? To ask two people to share their lives and not get close.” Thomas said, remembering that summer long ago, and trying to fight the tight coiling feeling in his stomach at the memory. He couldn’t pretend he was as focussed or intellectual about it as Branson, but he had always silently respected the chaffeur’s open disregard for the system they functioned in. And this was the ultimate act of defiance. Thomas could have stolen as many bottles of wine as he wanted, but nothing could compare to this. He suspected he was perhaps a bit jealous of the impact he had made, of the very personal way he had undercut the Crawleys.

“He should have been able to control himself.” O’Brien said, her fingers tight on the needle, her fingertips white.

“It’s not just him though, is it?” Mrs Patmore said. “We’ve all got to check we mind our places, haven’t we?”

“What do you think’ll happen now then?” Daisy asked, wide-eyed and unsure about it all.

“Oh they’ll get married all right, before she ends up living in squalor and crawling back to her parents.” O’Brien said bitterly.

“You don’t know that.” Anna said, feeling the need to stick up for her sort-of friend. “Branson was always a good worker.”

“Got paid more than us, that’s for sure.” Thomas said dryly.

“It’s still not Downton.” O’Brien said sharply to Anna. “She obviously doesn’t know what it’s going to be like.” And in her mind she remembered the damp corners of her childhood, the years spent scrambling for pennies on wet cobbled streets, and knew that Sybil would not fail to fall apart when her feet finally hit the floor. All the while abandoning her lady, ripping apart the cord between them so suddenly and so cruelly it took all she could muster not to go and give the girl a good slap for her ingratitude.

“She always struck me as a sensible girl.” Mrs Patmore said, wiping her hands on her apron whilst she checked the temperature of the stew. “I’m sure she has some idea.”

“I just don’t understand why she’d give up this life.” O’Brien said.

Anna looked up. “To be with the man she loves. Anything’s worth that, isn’t it?”

“Well we know that’s what you think.” O’Brien sneered. “Doesn’t mean it’s the right thing.”

“There’s no right and wrong in love.” Mrs Patmore interjected. “Or sense for that matter.”

The matter naturally settled with that. The rhythm of life had to continue, no matter how much the news had sent shockwaves through them all. Quietly all of them thought of upstairs and of the soon to be empty room of Lady Sybil’s, lying there untouched like a tomb. The delicate equilibirium between friendship and servitude they all treaded daily seemed to waver in front of their very eyes into a tangled mess.

One of Our Own with One of Them. They would touch and make love. There would be no titles between them. She was to be stripped down, renewed, made a different person altogether. And there was no logic behind it, just raw element and emotion bringing about her transformation. It was powerful, they realised, the transformative power of this love.

The servants’ hall felt suddenly cold.


End file.
